Investigating the Risks of mRNA Vaccines

Medicine Community & Research
MME Networks
Published in
7 min readFeb 24, 2024

Written by Benjamin Tangkamolsuk

Medical Community and Research

Saturday 17th February 2024

Abstract

We all know the mRNA vaccine, but have we ever considered the true risks of the vaccine itself? This article goes over the real potential risks of the mRNA vaccine and what it may do to our bodies.

Keywords: Immunology, Medicine, Health

Article

“The vaccines were rushed out in less than a year rather than normally required 7 to 10 years.”

- Dr. Jianqing Wu

So, in the past few years, a new type of vaccine has been developed in the midst of our global pandemic, the mRNA vaccine. But with its short release time and its high demand, who knows what possible health effects it may have? But before we dig into all of that, let’s take a look at what mRNA actually is.

Disclaimer: I am not, nor am I holding myself out to be a doctor/physician, nurse, physician’s assistant, advanced practice nurse, or any other medical professional (“Medical Provider”), psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or social worker (“Mental Health Provider”), registered dietician or licensed nutritionist, or member of the clergy. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking personal medical advice should consult with a licensed physician. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health provider regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read from this article.

Image by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash

mRNA, or Messenger RNA is a molecule that contains instructions to make a protein, like a recipe book. These messenger RNAs will essentially tell the cells in our body to produce these proteins, which in this case would be the components to assemble the virus antigens. Our bodies can identify these virus antigens as foreign, hence it starts an immune response to the foreign threat with antibodies and T-cells. These antibodies and T-Cells will then fight the antigens created by the cells in our body and this trains the immune system for any potential future attacks. This last portion works exactly like the other 2 types of vaccines, dead vaccines and alive vaccines, where they inject the pathogen into the body for the immune response to identify and kill the pathogen.

Now, it’s also important to note that the mRNA technology was not extremely new to the field of immunology. It had been widely misunderstood by the general public that mRNA existed due to the Covid-19 outbreak, but rather, the mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine by Pfizer was the first approved mRNA vaccine that has begun commercial distribution across the globe. But with clinical trials spanning from April 2020 to December 2020, how could we know of any long term effects of the mRNA vaccine, if any. Furthermore, a paper by Dr. Jianqing Wu had identified 2 fatal flaws of the clinical trials of the mRNA vaccine. First, the results of the clinical trials had not correlated to any well known statistical distributions and that none of the health properties can be added and averaged, which raises concerns on the reliability of the clinical trials itself. Furthermore, in April 2023, the FDA had also changed the authorization status of the mRNA vaccines in the US, bringing light to any possibilities of risks.

Now, let’s talk first about possibilities. Most side effects related to vaccines usually occur in the immediate range, which is usually in a 30 minute window of the vaccination time. This is the exact reason why observation is required for 30 minutes post-vaccination. Therefore, the sheer possibility of having secondary effects is already very slim. In addition to this, we have seen in the past that no other vaccine has caused any long-term effects on the body.

Now that we have talked about the possibilities, we should also cover some popular myths that are cycling amongst society regarding the mRNA vaccines. Some say that the mRNA would cause platelet numbers to rise, causing blood clots and heart conditions such as CAD (Coronary Artery Disease). Although this has proven to be very much untrue. According to the research, a cytometry test was ran on individuals with and without the BioNTech mRNA vaccine and had concluded that “Results show no significant or persisting platelet aggregation trends following the vaccine doses, indicating that any effects of vaccinations on platelet turnover, platelet activation, platelet aggregation, and platelet-leukocyte interaction was insignificant.”.

Another myth that had been circulating in the media was how the mRNA vaccine was going to “mutate” the human body in the future. This is due to the misconception that the mRNA vaccines interact with our DNA. But in reality, the mRNA vaccines introduce a piece of the mRNA itself that corresponds to a viral protein. This small piece of the protein is usually found on the virus’s outer membrane. By doing this, the cell can produce the viral protein. This means that the person can not get infected with the virus itself. Once the cell finishes making the said viral protein, the cell quickly breaks it down. In addition to this, the mRNA does not even enter the cell’s nucleus, hence it does not alter the cell’s DNA in any way shape or form.

Although the mRNA doesn’t interfere with the cell’s DNA, we must also consider much more aspects other than DNA interaction. According to the vaccine report database, the rare but possible effects to the central nervous system include: brain death, brain injury, cerebellar stroke, cerebral arteriosclerosis, cerebral artery embolism and 53 other CNS conditions. Dr. Jianqing Wu had also conducted research by viewing and reading web blogs, in which a number of personal statements by individuals taking the mRNA vaccine claim to experience various symptoms across multiple days, but as this is not tested officially, the data would be considered unreliable. In more severe cases, Dr. Jianqing Wu had stated that “I must assume that the vaccines have temporarily depressed their organ functions to nearly disability levels”. And as for those who had been hospitalized after receiving the mRNA vaccine, it was observed that many had severe adverse reactions to the vaccine that could not be reversed.

Surprisingly, the mRNA vaccine could also have an effect on cancer development speed. In all those cited cases, increased cancer risks are not correlated through genetic mutation, but through compromising the immune system. Since vaccines compromise the CNS system, it has a possibility that mRNA vaccines could temporarily increase the cancer development speed in the body, although in some instances, it could cause the cell to self resolve by accident.

Lastly, let’s talk about cardiovascular complications. A common trend amongst all the research that I have conducted so far is that there are evident cardiovascular complications with taking the mRNA vaccine. Most notably, pulmonary embolism and thrombosis. Out of all the individuals that took the mRNA vaccine, 17,636 individuals showed cardiovascular complications, 13,936 of those people had thrombosis, 758 had stroke and 511 had myocarditis. This is due to the fact that the increased quantity of immune cells had caused the local and systolic blood pressure to rise, hence creating a big blood pressure spike leading to cardiovascular disease like mentioned above.

Just to end it off, there are many more little complications with mRNA that are not covered in this article, such as Anaphylaxis and antibody-dependent enhancements as well as potentially unknown conditions that could be created as a result of this new technology. Only time will tell as the human body is a complex model that no mathematical equation or computer model could accurately simulate how it works. Although there are many risks associated with the mRNA vaccine, it is generally considered safe by most, if not all, health organizations across the globe. But before choosing your next vaccine, if you have any questions or concerns, talk to your healthcare provider before considering.

References

Pfizer. (n.d.). mRNA Technology. Pfizer. https://www.pfizer.com/science/innovation/mrna-technology

Sen, S. K. (Year of Publication: 2024). Messenger RNA (mRNA). Retrieved February, 18, 2024, from https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/messenger-rna

National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). What are mRNA vaccines and how do they work? Retrieved from https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/therapy/mrnavaccines/

Jianqing Wu (2022) Expression of Concern: Potential Risks and Unknown Effects of mRNA Vaccines on Population Health (6th Rev). Damages Are Being Materialized. International Journal of Coronaviruses — 4(2):7–43. https://doi.org/10.14302/issn.2692-1537.ijcv-22-4117

Harris DA, Hayes KN, Zullo AR, et al. Comparative Risks of Potential Adverse Events Following COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination Among Older US Adults. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(8):e2326852. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.26852

Acevedo-Whitehouse K, Bruno R. Potential health risks of mRNA-based vaccine therapy: A hypothesis. Med Hypotheses. 2023 Feb;171:111015. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2023.111015. Epub 2023 Jan 25. PMID: 36718314; PMCID: PMC9876036.

Yasmin F, Najeeb H, Naeem U, Moeed A, Atif AR, Asghar MS, Nimri N, Saleem M, Bandyopadhyay D, Krittanawong C, Fadelallah Eljack MM, Tahir MJ, Waqar F. Adverse events following COVID-19 mRNA vaccines: A systematic review of cardiovascular complication, thrombosis, and thrombocytopenia. Immun Inflamm Dis. 2023 Mar;11(3):e807. doi: 10.1002/iid3.807. PMID: 36988252; PMCID: PMC10022421.

Zhou Y, Nishikawa M, Kanno H, Yang R, Ibayashi Y, Xiao TH, Peterson W, Herbig M, Nitta N, Miyata S, Kanthi Y, Rohde GK, Moriya K, Yatomi Y, Goda K. Long-term effects of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccinations on platelets. Cytometry A. 2023 Feb;103(2):162–167. doi: 10.1002/cyto.a.24677. Epub 2022 Aug 8. PMID: 35938513; PMCID: PMC9538905.

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